Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

There were so many slaves in Jiangnan that even though their masters had various restrictions, many talented people still emerged.

Not to mention Li Yu of the Shen family, there are also many descendants of slaves in other families who are well-read and talented.

These people are now hidden dangers, and Huang Daozhou is deeply worried after seeing the relevant files. He sighed to everyone:
"If we don't allow slaves who are able to donate to the government to be deregistered, do we have to wait for them to resort to other means?"

"If these people incite other slaves to cause trouble, how will you respond?"

Everyone changed color when they heard this. Wang Shimin, a native of Taicang Prefecture, grandson of Wang Xijue, who had more than a thousand servants at home, said:
"Official Huang, be careful with your words!"

"In this peaceful and prosperous time, who would be so bold?"

"If there are slaves who really stir up trouble, the imperial army will not be just for show."

They obviously thought Huang Daozhou was exaggerating and trying to intimidate them.

Huang Daozhou knew Wang Shimin, the man who resigned from his official position and returned to his hometown this year.

As the grandson of Wang Xijue, Wang Shimin entered the officialdom through imperial favor and worked in the Shangbao Division, but was not taken seriously.

In addition, the emperor set the Mokan Law, and since he was not a Jinshi, he only had a chance to be promoted once every six years. In the previous several times he was recommended by the court, he was not able to transfer to other government offices.

This made Wang Shimin feel that his official career was hopeless, and when Suzhou was conducting a comprehensive land survey and compiling a yellow book this year, he chose to resign and return home to deal with family affairs.

He studied painting under Dong Qichang, and like Chen Jiru and Huang Daozhou he was a famous calligrapher and painter, so he was invited here.

Huang Daozhou heard that his family had strict rules, so he advised earnestly:
"In governing a country or a family, we need to balance leniency and strictness."

"The current emperor has followed the advice of Lord Liu and re-established rituals and music based on benevolence."

"Allowing slaves to donate money to the government officials to escape from slavery is practicing benevolence."

"My dear brother, you should also obey the will of the Holy Spirit and release those talented servants."

Wang Shimin sneered at this and even hated Huang Daozhou. He felt that if these words were spread, it would break his family rules and make the servants disloyal.

So he immediately planned to write a letter to Wen Tiren and other old friends, asking them to continue to impeach Huang Daozhou in the court. It would be best to demote Huang Daozhou to a remote place and not let this person serve as an official in Suzhou.

Huang Daozhou, who didn't know that Wang Shimin was so petty, was still worried about this matter.

There were simply too many slaves in Jiangnan. Especially after the imperial court made amends and allowed the untouchables to join the army and obtain civilian and military household status, he knew that many slaves were restless.

The increase in master-servant cases heard in Suzhou Prefecture was a manifestation of this unrest. Many wealthy slaves donated money to become officials and were freed from slavery.

The masters of the slaves pretended to be lenient and let a few of them go at first, but when more slaves were released, they refused to let them go. They even sued the slaves for embezzling their property and used their property to donate to the government.

Huang Daozhou has tried many such cases in the past month, and found that the counties are trying even more. This makes him deeply worried and feels that the world is getting worse:

"Re-establish rituals and music, but don't do as Wang Anshi did in his reforms, which caused chaos in the world!"

"Teacher, why would you make such a policy in the court?"

Ever since the Privy Council headed by Yuan Keli included tenants who rented government land into the scope of military and civilian households, Huang Daozhou felt that the unrest in Suzhou had become even worse.

In Suzhou, more than 60% of the land was government farmland. Many slaves cultivated land that belonged to the government but was sublet by the landlords.

According to the new system of the imperial court, those who rented government land should be military and civilian households, and the male members of their families would need to serve in the military when they reached adulthood.

After the imperial court abolished the preferential treatment and exemption and stipulated that everyone had the responsibility to serve in the military, those who did not want to serve in the military had to pay exemption money.

Naturally, the landlords would not help pay this money, so the burden fell on them.

This made many slaves unwilling. They had relied on the landlords in order to avoid taxes and labor service. Now that they could no longer avoid them, why should they still depend on them?

More and more slaves wanted to leave their official positions. Some who had read books and newspapers even quoted the emperor's words and asked the government to take back the official land of families with more than 100 mu of land and distribute it to needy families for rent.

They planned to use this to free themselves from their slave status and continue to rent and cultivate the existing land.

The wealthy families in Suzhou naturally disagreed with this beautiful idea, and the resulting dispute put the government under great pressure.

When Huang Daozhou attended the Suzhou Prefecture meeting, he often heard other colleagues mention this matter.

Many officials felt that if this matter was not resolved, a major change would be imminent in Suzhou Prefecture.
-
Huang Daozhou's premonition was correct. Just when these scholars were gathering, chaos had already broken out in Taicang Prefecture.

The cause was not the instigation of the talented slaves as he said, but Zhang Pu, a scholar from an official family, who triggered this incident.

After Ming Pao Company went public and raised a large amount of funds at the beginning of the year, Zhang Pu discussed with Chen Zilong and others to use the money to expand the circulation of Ming Pao and increase its influence outside Beijing.

Especially in Jiangnan, where they started their business, they cannot allow newspapers like Datong Daily to control public opinion.

So Zhang Pu entrusted the Ming Pao in the capital to Chen Zilong in the name of preparing for the provincial examination, and returned to Jiangnan to run a newspaper with a group of scholars who were also going to take part in the provincial examination.

If Ming Pao wants to increase its sales in Jiangnan, it must publish more local news. The difference between the Jiangnan edition and the national edition is that it has these additional articles.

These news need to be written by scholars, and also require specialized editors to select and revise the manuscripts.

Zhang Pu recruited many talented people, hoping that Jiangnan Mingbao would get on track as soon as possible so as not to delay his preparation for the provincial examination.

He also planned to accept a few disciples to help him control Ming Pao after he entered the official career.

One day, when he was writing a review for an article in the newspaper office, he suddenly found that an editor was not there, so he called his disciple Wu Weiye and said:

"Why didn't Zhang Yao come?"

"Did he ask for leave?"

This is someone he is very optimistic about and plans to take as his disciple in the future.

Wu Weiye knew what the teacher was thinking, and he sighed and said:

"Brother Zhang was detained by Wu Shirui and was not allowed to come here."

"My disciples sent someone to ask, and Wu Shirui told us to withdraw the article we wrote a few days ago and not to encourage slaves to become military civilians."

This was an article published a few days ago, and Zhang Pu also commented on it. It was a suggestion to the tenants in Jiangnan, asking them to become military and civilian households and pay taxes and serve the court.

Now hearing that Wu Shirui wanted to withdraw the article, the arrogant Zhang Pu was furious.

When he was in the capital, he had never encountered such a thing. Even the emperor only drew a red line for him, not allowing him to report royal affairs and palace secrets at will.

Hearing that Wu Shirui dared to interfere with his publication of an article, Zhang Pu said angrily:

"How dare you, you little brat, interfere with my newspaper business!"

"Even the Emperor has never made such a request. Where does he get the courage to do this?"

"Also, what right did Wu Shirui have to detain Zhang Yao? Who gave him the power?"

Wu Weiye and Wu Shirui both have the surname Wu and are from Suzhou Taicang. But they have nothing to do with each other.

Wu Weiye's father was just a teacher and could not possibly be related to a big family like the Wu family.

At this time he said with shame:

"We found out that Zhang Yao was Wu Shirui's servant and his parents were both in Wu's family."

"Now Wu Shirui wants to detain him and use him as a slave, and there is nothing we can do." Upon hearing this, Zhang Pu thought of some unusual things about Zhang Yao, especially his concern for the affairs of slaves.

This made him realize that what Wu Weiye said was probably true:
Zhang Yao is a hereditary servant of the Wu family. According to the current social situation, he can be detained by his master.

But the world is the world, and Zhang Pu is not a person who follows the rules.

Thinking of his mother being bullied at home because she was born a slave, and his father Zhang Yizhi being bullied by his uncle's slaves, he died of depression. Zhang Pu said angrily:
"go!"

"You all come with me."

"Rescue Zhang Yao."

He took a group of people from the newspaper and headed to the Wu family in a mighty procession.

Zhang Pu had a great reputation in the capital. Many people knew that he was favored by the emperor and was a disciple of Grand Secretary Xu Guangqi, so they were very polite to him.

The reporters of Ming Pao were even known as the White-robed Censors, and no minister in the court dared to provoke them easily.

But in Jiangnan, many people still think of him as a budding talent who has not yet passed the imperial examination.

Wu Shirui came from a prominent family and was the nephew of Wang Shimin. He looked down upon a poor scholar like Zhang Pu.

Seeing Zhang Pu and his men blocking the door, Wu Shirui said arrogantly:
"Zhang Pu, what do you want to do?"

"Could it be that he has thought it through and has withdrawn Zhang Yao's article?"

Zhang Pu pouted and cursed him directly:

"Who do you think you are to interfere with my newspaper?"

"Let me make this clear today. If you don't release Zhang Yao, everyone will know about your Wu family's scandal tomorrow!"

Wu Shirui disagreed and said:

"What kind of shameful thing is this? Would it be a shame if others knew about it?"

"If you want Zhang Yao to be released, first you have to remove the article and promise not to instigate slaves to escape from their membership in the newspaper."

"Second, ask a reputable person to come forward, such as your teacher, Master Xu."

"I heard that you worshipped Master Xu as your teacher in the capital. You don't even have this little bit of dignity, do you?"

Zhang Pu was furious, because Wu Shirui's words clearly showed that he didn't take him seriously at all. The reason why he was willing to give him face was because of his teacher Xu Guangqi.

How could he, with such a conceited personality, be willing to endure this?
Pointing at Wu Shirui's nose, Zhang Pu said to him:

"Tomorrow you will know what I, Zhang Ximing, am capable of."

"If you don't release Zhang Yao and apologize, this matter won't end today."

He led everyone away and returned to the newspaper office.

Wu Shirui looked at him like this, snorted with disdain, spat at his back and said:
"What are you capable of, Zhang Ximing? Isn't it just that you have a university scholar as your teacher?"

"I thought you could take advantage of your teacher's influence, but now it seems that your relationship with Master Xu is just average!"

"Without someone from the Xu family coming forward, who are you?"

He ordered people to guard the gate and continued to enjoy the flowers and listen to music at home.

He also ordered Zhang Yao to write poems and essays to entertain him, treating him completely as a servant to amuse himself.

Let's not talk about how humiliated Zhang Yao felt. When Zhang Pu returned to the newspaper office, he felt extremely humiliated. Since he took charge of Ming Pao in Beijing, no one had ever looked down on him like this.

Taking out a token, Zhang Pu told Wu Weiye:

"Take it and go find the eunuch in charge of Susong and tell him that I, Zhang Pu, want to donate public officials to Zhang Yao."

"Also, ask him to coordinate with the printing workshop. I want to print 100,000 copies of the newspaper tomorrow and distribute them throughout Jiangnan."

Wu Weiye knew that his teacher was very successful in Beijing, but he didn't know how successful he was.

Hearing this, he said tremblingly:

"Teacher, the eunuch in charge of Susong is the former eunuch in charge of the Suzhou and Hangzhou weaving factory."

"Teacher, can you make him obey with just a token?"

Zhang Pu said impatiently:
"Just go if you're told to go. You'll know when you get there."

"I thought I wouldn't have to deal with these people, but I didn't expect that I would be inseparable from them in Suzhou."

"From now on, our Jiangnan Ming Daily will still be subject to supervision!"

Before going south this time, Cao Huachun had instructed that the content of "Jiangnan Ming Bao" must be reviewed by the eunuchs supervising Susong to prevent him from crossing the red line.

Zhang Pu was unwilling to deal with these eunuchs, so after returning to Jiangnan, he did not go to see the eunuchs in Susong. He directly registered with the Nanjing Ministry of Rites and obtained approval for issuance.

Now that he had encountered problems, he decided to find the eunuch who supervised the taxation of Suzhou and Songjiang and let this person assist him. Jiangnan Ming Pao would naturally be supervised in the future and would not be as free as before.

But thinking about the fact that other newspapers had to be censored by the Royal Guards, he felt that this was acceptable. At least compared to those newspapers, Ming Pao had a much higher degree of freedom.

Leading a group of editors, Zhang Pu quickly finished writing the article to be published, which vividly portrayed Zhang Yao's love of learning and Wu Shirui's domineering nature.

In particular, he raised a thought-provoking question through this incident:

Are slaves human beings? Are they citizens of the Ming Dynasty?

The article was so inflammatory that Zhang Pu sent many people from the newspaper to read it on the streets. At that time, Taicang Prefecture, Suzhou Prefecture, and even all over Nanzhili knew that the Wu family had detained the slaves of the scholar. The slaves who learned about this were all very angry.

Many slaves from Taicang Prefecture gathered in front of the Wu family's door. Some of them were tenant farmers and even carried farm tools.

The Wu family was so frightened that they quickly closed the door and asked the servants to guard the house, fearing that it would provoke a mutiny among the slaves and cause the Wu family to be robbed.

However, after seeing what happened to Zhang Yao, many of these servants were resentful and naturally did not care about guarding the Wu family, and some even deliberately sabotaged it.

Wu Shirui was so frightened that he quickly sent someone to report to the government and asked his uncle Wang to send someone to solve the problem.

Before the party was over, Wang Shimin received a letter from his nephew asking for help.

Huang Daozhou, the magistrate of Suzhou Prefecture, also received the news from the government office:

Officials from Suzhou Prefecture are going to hold an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with this matter.

This made Huang Daozhou's heart tremble, knowing that the thing he was most worried about had finally happened. The slave rebellion in Suzhou was imminent, and a major chaos would occur if he was not careful.

However, when he saw that this matter was related to Zhang Pu, he felt a little relieved.

Because he had come into contact with Zhang Pu in the capital, he knew that this man was a gentleman and was deeply favored by the emperor.

I don't think Zhang Pu's move was intended to cause unrest. (End of this chapter)